The safehouse
by MoreLikeYourGhost
Summary: When Sams world is crashing around her, who will be there for her to pick her up? Seddie, I think. Read and review please! This fic makes Freddie look great! Sorry guys, on hiatus!
1. Chapter 1

Hello, people of the internet! I now come with a kind darkish fic about Sam and Freddie and the like. I started writing another fic called iKissed him back, but I'm re-writing it because I don't think it was my best. On with the show!

--

Sam took a deep breath before turning the corner, her heart rate increasing as she started down the wonky path. _What am I going to do? _She silently asked herself as she observed the setting. She walked through this park every day on her way home from Carlys, and it was always so radiant, so green, so alive. But now, after dark, the magic it held in the day time had completely evaporated.

A cool, fine mist seemed to hang in the air, while the towering, dense, trees seemed to close in on her, jagged branches protruding from the darkness like threatening hands. The slow breeze was enough to lift the sparse carpet of brittle leaves from their place on the slightly dewy ground with a rustle so startling in the eerie silence it might as well have been an explosion. Bushes sat scattered everywhere, no apparent pattern or order but each holding the same shiny black-coloured berries, glinting in the moonlight like a creatures eyes just before attack.

What had led her to this? Her mum had always simply ignored her every day, her attention turned on whichever guy she was screwing that night. But tonight, in a cataclysmic turn of events, Sam's mother had exploded, raging at Sam and eventually kicking her out of the house with no more than her school bag and a cut cheek.

Sam finally exited the park, the fear in the pit of her stomach still not disappearing or even decreasing. She wasn't sure where her legs were carrying her, she just hoped it was somewhere safe, somewhere she knew well.

She crossed the road and stood outside Carly's building, sighing. Her second home, the place she knew so well. She went inside, the room feeling a lot safer without Lewbert there, but still frighteningly ghostly and empty.

Several minutes later, she was standing outside Carly's apartment door, her hand hovering in the air, halfway to knocking. What would she do once she got in there? Yeah, she could tell Carly her problems, but what would happen after that? Carly always managed to steer the conversation back to the latest gossip, or her latest crush, or Zac Efron's latest movie. No advice for Sam.

What Sam needed was a real friend, a sensitive person, who would listen to her and try to advise her. Someone like...

She turned around and knocked on Freddie's door, softly knocking in Morse code for "iCarly" like Freddie had taught her the week before. Less than a minute later the door opened and a sleepy looking Freddie stood before her, sleepily rubbing his eyes.

'Sam?' he said tiredly. 'What's up?'

'Can I stay here tonight?'

--

Ookay, there it is. I wasn't sure if I was going to publish this but, here you go. If you have any suggestions for the plot, or my writing, don't hesitate to tell me in a review.

Okey dokey! Thanks for reading, bye!

Charz x


	2. Chapter 2

Hi! Thanks for the reviews! Sorry if this took too long to update, but I've been super busy. On Monday I had a ton of homework (I actually finished it all!) and yesterday I went up to Bristol for football straight from school and I didn't get back 'til Midnight, so now is the only time I can do this, especially since I'm helping out at my school later on open evening. You're just lucky I had a half day today (finished at 12:30) otherwise you'd have to wait literally many hours for an update. Also, I've got tomorrow and Friday off, so expect some activity then.

On with the show!

--

Sam snuggled up tighter in Freddie's arms, nuzzling into the soft, material of Freddie's Flobots t-shirt. Freddie's arms subconsciously tightened round Sam's slim waist, warmly and protectively.

_Flashback_

'_Can I stay here tonight?' Sam asked Freddie._

_Freddie looked concerned, his brotherly instinct for Sam kicking in. Sam suddenly looked so tiny, shivering in her pyjamas, just a pair of rainbow coloured long-shorts and a pink vest top. Her watery eyes cried for help, a cry so pleading not even a hardened criminal could say no._

'_Of course,' Freddie said. He stepped aside to let Sam in and felt slightly startled and suitably awkward when Sam started crying. _

_After shutting the door, Freddie went over to Sam and hugged her tight. Instead of being an awkward hug between two friends-but-not-really-friends it was a deep and meaningful, comforting hug between someone who needed it and someone who cared._

_Freddie sat Sam down on the sofa before hurrying into the kitchen and fetching a cool, damp towel. Sitting next to Sam he gently pressed it against the cut on her cheek, trying not to cause any pain and desperate to help. She winced at the sudden coolness on her flushed, tear-stained cheek._

'_Do you want to talk about it?' Freddie asked worriedly. Sure, Sam was rude, obnoxious, kinda greedy and lazy, but she was his friend, and he really cared a lot about her._

_Sam shook her head automatically but paused, thinking. Freddie wouldn't judge her if she poured her heart out to him, definitely. And he certainly wasn't the type to blab about it, not even to Carly. She nodded._

_She moved closer to Freddie. However she didn't face him, as if she was in a church, confessing a sin, and Freddie was a priest. Freddie tenderly removed the towel from Sam's cheek, set it down on the coffee table and rested his hands in his lap, still sleepy, but ready to listen._

'_So... it's...' Sam found trouble beginning. 'It's my mom,' she settled on. 'She's messed up. Drinking, sleeping around, all right under my nose. Tonight she... I don't know. She had this dude over, and she told me to go upstairs. And, well, I was on my laptop and I didn't want to go upstairs. The dude went to the bathroom and she started yelling. She was all up in my face, telling me how I was a disappointment, a burden, how she should have had an abortion...' Fresh tears started forming in Sam's eyes. '... she threw her shot glass at me... my cheek... she – I –' Sam was crying inconsolably now._

_Freddie was visibly wound up, but placed a comforting hand on Sam's back. 'You don't have to finish,' he said softly._

_Sam leaned back, falling into Freddie's arms. He held her tight, knowing it was the least he could do, and soothed her to sleep._

_Flashback over_

Freddie and Sam were awoken by Ms. Benson's shrill scream. The first thing they saw was her standing over them, her face contorted into an expression frighteningly similar to the _Scream _painting.

'Woah, woah, mom!' Freddie cried. 'Calm down!'

Sam sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the couch. Her mind was blank for a moment; 'What's going on? ... Oh, right.' She remembered the events of the night before.

'What did you do to my son?' Ms. Bensons cry was high pitched, so much so that Sam couldn't play any music in her head to block it out.

'Mom, Sam just needed help with... a problem last night, that's all. I helped her out.'

'A problem?' Ms. Benson looked momentarily confused. 'A maths problem?'

'Yeah...' Sam glanced at Freddie. 'A maths problem.'

'Well that's fine then,' Ms. Benson replied. 'Are you staying for breakfast, Samantha?'

'As much as I'd like to, Freddie's mom, I should probably get home. My mom would be... worried...'

'Alrighty then,' Ms. Benson pottered off to the bathroom, her big pink bathrobe billowing behind her, making her bum look like a beach ball.

Sam glanced down at the carpet, chewing her lip. 'I'd better go home, then,' she said.

'Sam?' Freddie said.

'Yeah?'

'Do you want me to come with you?'

'That would be awesome,' Sam smiled weakly.

Ten minutes later, the pair left the apartment, Freddie fully dressed and Sam with Freddie's Scouting For Girls t-shirt thrown on for decency. They walked through the park, him oblivious to the fact that each crunch of the leaves under their feet still made butterflies shake in Sam's stomach at the memory of the night before.

Standing outside Sam's house, you would never have guessed what went on in there, as it looked so normal. There were two milk bottles standing next to the slightly overgrown bushes, waiting to be picked up, and a crumpled newspaper hanging out of the letter box. A few weeds grew in the grassy front garden, but nothing that couldn't be sorted out by a half-hour of gardening, and a couple of garden gnomes stood bright and cheerful next to each other, each holding fishing rods and rocking red pointy hats.

_If only they knew what went on in here, _Sam thought as she and Freddie walked past them on their way to the front door. _Then they wouldn't be so damn happy._

As Sam inserted the key into the lock on the door, she found herself reaching for Freddie's hand and clasping it, like a five year old if it had seen something scary.

The door swung open, revealing a corridor with cream walls and a once-fluffy-now-matted brown carpet. A picture of Sam and her mum five years earlier hung on the wall, like a tool to convince people that they had a happy family life.

The end of the corridor was where it started to look wrong. The remnants of the broke shot glass lay in the doorway, a few shards glistening with Sam's blood. Carefully sidestepping this, Sam walked into the beige-themed living room.

Her heart stopped for a moment as she stood, unable to move, in the doorway. She dropped Freddie's hand and her mouth formed into a devastated "o" shape as she saw the scene in front of her.

--

Sorry is it was disappointing, it was like midnight when I wrote this. I have a huuuuuge folder up in my room that I write in every day, it's brilliant. It's blue but you can barely see any blue bits because I've covered it in pictures of various hotties e.g. James Sutton, Lucas Grabeel, Nick Jonas, Nick Jonas, Nick Jonas, and a little bit more Nick Jonas. Nick Jonas is hot.

So please get your review thang on and drop me a line, your feedback is to me like hotness is to the Jonas Brothers.

Thanks!

Charz

xx


	3. Chapter 3

Hello iCarly people! Thanks for the feedback! Well in actual fact I only put the last chapter up less than half an hour ago, so I haven't got any reviews back, but you iCarly lot are no nice in your reviews (honestly, you're much nicer than the Hollyoaks lot, they only review Kress's and John-Paul fics). Sorry, some of you probably don't have a clue what I'm talking about when I say Hollyoaks. But those of you that do – OMG did you watch it on Monday? Us, now, doesn't matter how, we'll always be together, Amy Josh forever! Josh is hot! Seriously, even if you don't watch Hollyoaks, Google image **Sonny Flood **– he's gorgeous! Sorry, I'm drooling now.

On with the show!

--

Mascara dyed tear stains dried on Ms. Puckett's pale cheeks, and her lipstick was smudged in an almost comical way, giving the image of a clown. One of her slippers was slipping off her not-so-clean foot, and gravity was tugging on her jacket, causing it to slip of her shoulders revealing a shocking pink bra.

Ms. Puckett was hanging from the ceiling.

Sam crumpled at the sight of her mother, screams echoing off the walls of the living room but still not enough to express the feeling that her heart had just been ripped out of her chest and stamped on by an ogre in soccer boots. She could vaguely hear Freddie's panicky voice in the background calling emergency services but all she could see was her mother, face tear-stained and drained of blood, with a burnt out cigarette still hanging from her limp fingers.

Freddie knelt behind her and held her, giving her a chest to cry on twice in a row. Sam sobbed inconsolably into his t-shirt, not wanting to speak or move, just clinging to the fact that she was in the arms of someone she loved.

The ambulance people arrived soon after that, the wailing siren enough to jolt Sam back to reality. Her mother was... dead?

The paramedics tenderly got Ms. Puckett on to a stretcher, gently but firmly brushing away Sam's attempts to cling to her mum. They explained to Freddie that Sam probably shouldn't ride with them in the ambulance because there would be a lot of potentially disturbing activity going on, but if they could get a lift to the hospital they could follow them up. Freddie made a call, then gently informed Sam his cousin would be giving them a lift.

Sam felt numb. She didn't feel Freddie tenderly lead her to his cousin's car. She didn't feel him slip a blanket over her shoulders. And she didn't feel him slip his arm round her and hold her all the way there. She just stared glassy eyed at whatever was in front of her, her mind in chaos. Her last words to her mother rang in her mind...

_Flashback_

'_I'll be back in a sec, hon,' Duke, Ms. Puckett's current lover, disappeared into the bathroom. Ms. Puckett got up off the sofa and up in Sam's face._

'_Listen, you little bitch,' she spat. 'Duke and I have something you'll never understand so you go upstairs and stay out of our way, got it?'_

'_Oh yeah? What's Duke's last name?' Sam challenged bravely, not shifting from her place on the carpet._

'_It's...' That's when Ms. Puckett hit her._

_It was a sharp slap across the face that sent Sam spiralling away, her laptop crashing off her lap and into a corner, the screen going dark and fuzzy._

_Sam rubbed the place on her cheek her mother had just struck her. 'D-didn't hurt,' she stammered, though tears were already gracing her eyes._

_Ms. Puckett downed the shot she'd just poured herself. 'Oh, shut up!' She hurled the shot glass at Sam, as casually as if she was throwing a pillow at a bed._

_The glass hit Sam's cheek, frighteningly close to her eye. It shattered and fragments embedded themselves in her skin, causing it to draw blood._

'_Now get out!' her mother roared. She picked up Sam's backpack and shoved it into Sam's chest. 'Go!'_

_Sam, without hesitation, headed for the door. She then paused as she opened it._

'_I hate you,' she said coldly. And with that, she left._

_Flashback over_

People shouted all around Sam and Freddie, who were huddled in the waiting room. As the reality of the situation slowly sunk in, Sam found herself clinging to Freddie. Freddie's cousin, Charlotte, was sitting opposite them, a concerned look on her face.

'I really think I should call your mom, Freddie,' she said, running a hand through her already tousled auburn hair.

Freddie shook his head. 'Not yet,' he said.

'Relatives of Gina Puckett?' a doctor entering the room called out.

'Um, right here,' Charlotte raised her hand slightly.

'I'm sorry to have to be the one to break this to you,' he said, 'but I'm afraid Gina was confirmed dead several minutes ago.'

Sam went limp in Freddie's arms. Her mother was gone... and the last thing she'd told her was "I hate you."

--

Sorry if the end was a little dodgy, I really don't like writing hospital scenes, probably because I can't draw on my own experiences. Ookay, so please review! Thanks a lot!

Oh, and Freddie's cousin Charlotte might have a point, but at the moment she's just the nice relative who drove Freddie and Sam to the hospital. I might hook her up with Spencer. And yeah, she's kinda based on me, almost. If you wanna see what I look like just ask for my MySpace if you want. I don't know about you, but I like knowing what people look like :D

Mucho love-o (and happy Jonas day)

Charz

xoxo


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